10 yards

15 yards

25 yards

30 yards plus

Reflecting on last weeks tragic events, I felt I needed to shoot my carry gun - officer's ACP - further than close combat distance.

I set up a torso sized target and shot at 25', 50' and 75'. I put all but one round in the torso and one bulls eye from 25' and another from 75'. It really does a lot of good to know you can hit your target at greater than arms length.

What is the longest distance at which you regularly shoot a carry gun?

Anything out to 100yds. Mostly less than 50 yards. According to the experts most
shooting involving police officers, and civilian concealed carry permit holders,
happen at a distance of less than ten feet, with average distance of three feet. I mostly practice these disances while moving. You can't do that at the public range, unless you are the only one there. I shoot at home. I practice strong hand, and weak hand, I just haven't figgered out how to draw my gun with my weak hand! I'm too big around!

My carry gun is a Sig in .380 with Speer Gold Dots. I usually shoot at both 25' and 50'. At both 25' & 50' I can put them all within the center torso area on a silhouette target. At 25' I can put 6 out of 6 in the neck/head area.

For fun my buddies and I will shoot at clay pigeons out to what his range finder says is about 40 yards. Most of us miss more than we hit, but hitting that 40 yard clay with a handgun makes it worth it when we do see it shatter. To be honest we tend to hit more with our full size guns and not so much with our smaller carry sized.

25 and 50 yard targets not shot this day but if you want to know what distances I shoot at this is my range and the gun I have been carting around since 1972. I almost have the hang of it but don't worry, I will keep practicing till I get it down and do it right. Sorry about the flyer on the 100 yard target, it started raining and my rain spotted glasses made it a little hard to see the front sight.

Rapid Fire target

Rapid Fire Target

Slow fire target

My two handed and targets shot from a rest were a lot better but I wanted to show that shooting one handed isn't necessarily a handicap.

Click to expand...

I think any well trained policeman, military shooter trained to expert level with a handgun, a handgun hunter used to taking long shots in uncertain lighting conditions or a top competitive bullseye shooter would have made short work of this clown and probably wouldn't have had to shoot more than 50' to do it.

Front of the theater dressed in black, back lit by the screen assuming they didn't shut off the projector, air conditioning would have pulled the smoke from his grenades up and away from him. A couple of shots into his gas mask would have saved a lot of people, especially since he had to change guns once and had to reload a couple of times. His attention would have been on his gun not you. Anybody who has ever had to shoot while wearing a gas mask know his visibility was limited. Advantage to OC or CCW person.

Nope advantage to spree shooter, Cinemark has such concern for outlaws welfare that they prefer their paying clients to stay defenseless. After all everybody knows that law abiding gun owners are more likely to shoot themselves or family members with their gun and if faced with a bad man the bad man will take their gun away from them. Just call 911, problem fixed, they will be happy to show up and make reports on the incident. :banghead:

I shoot out to 75-100m most shooting sessions... as for hitting.... well, that's not always the case, hahaha. I always pick out torso sized rocks or post a cardboard popsicle stick and tap away at it. My little SP101 in .357 will easily hit human sized objects out to 100m (no stress, 5 tries), for a 3 1/8" barrel, I'm super impressed with it.

Many of my handguns will get rounds on target at some pretty amazing distances provided you have a full cylinder or magazine. The problem is doing it under stress and in less than ideal conditions. People miss at point blank range even. Stress shoots at even 25 yards are extremely difficult for even good shooters. Most of my practice is around 0-25 feet unless I'm plinking steel, then I back off to about 20yds.

practice, practice, practice...

gas mask would for certain limit his vision making him an easier target. Not sure if I would have survived depending on position but if I had a chance to get a 17rd mag of .40 off at him, I'm sure he wouldn't go unscathed.

9mm, I shoot up close and all in between. 25 yards is the normal and 50 yards occasionally. The longest distance I've tryied and done OK was a 6" balloon at 60 yards.
We had 4 of them set up (60yds.) and hit the first two and a few shots later, got the other two.
I practice 10, 15, 20, 25 and 50 yards and make it a habit of shooting at the very least, twice a week, sometimes more. Always getting the .22lr handguns out shooting...'bought every day. I have my own place to shoot, so if I'm home and nothing better to get into, it's shooting time here.

I started a couple weeks ago at 15ft, I feel very confident at that range. Since then I have measured out 30ft mark. On a target printed on normal paper I can stay on the paper but am really all over the place. I keep learning new techniques for stabilizing the pistol, lining up the sights and getting a faster recovery. Maybe one of you 25 yard shooters could share some tips?

Oh, and the target below isn't with a pistol but a .22 cal AR7 at 100 ft on a 4inch diameter outer ring target.

My range is only 15yds but I practice weak,strong one-handed and firing behind and contact and firing from retention.I work mainly on a bad breath distance as it is mainly where it will be.I even have an old jacket I fire my .357 from the pocket.It is pretty ragged now.